EU Prepared To Be Flexible At Cancun WTO Talks

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

08 September 2003

This week sees the start of the World Trade Organisation's fifth Ministerial Conference in Cancun, Mexico, and the talks form a crucial staging post on the road to a successful conclusion of the Doha Development agenda begun in Qatar in 2001 and due to conclude next year.

With several key issues unresolved, the European Commission has described the upcoming conference as crucial and claims the EU will be pushing hard for progress on these outstanding matters.

"But all WTO members must do their part, to ensure that progress is maintained on market access issues (agriculture, industrial tariff negotiations and services), as well as on global rule-making in areas such as trade and environment, investment, competition, trade facilitation and government procurement and that the all-important development dimension of the negotiations is respected in full," the Commission stated recently.

The EU's chief trade neogtiator, Pascal Lamy added: "The DDA is about making trade work for all, and delivering growth and development. The Cancun Ministerial meeting must move the negotiating process into a decisive phase, if we are to meet the end 2004 deadline. The timely conclusion of the round will bring good news to a world economy in need of stimulus. Europe is willing to take its responsibilities but we cannot do it alone. If we want this round to be successful, we will all have to shoulder the burden, and to show a willingness to compromise, a determination to succeed."

EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler meanwhile was less diplomatic, and criticised what he considers the unbending attitudes of those countries "who shout the loudest" though are unwilling to make concessions on agricultural issues. "The EU has shown a lot of flexibility in the last weeks. We have moved from our starting position, because we think that the time of rhetoric is over and we have to start converging," said Fischler. "Unfortunately, I have not seen the same flexibility in other camps so far. In fact, I have seen no flexibility on the part of those who shout loudest."

The Commission is also critical of a revised draft of the Cancun Ministerial Text tabled by Chairman of the General Council of the WTO Mr. Perez de Castillo in preparation for next week's talks.

"For the EU, the text is not balanced in some areas (notably in agriculture), insufficiently ambitious in others (for example in industrial tariffs and geographical indications) or presents a step down in ambition (e.g. on Environment).The text also fails to provide an unequivocal decision on the launch of the negotiations on the Singapore issues. Ministers now have the task to balance this text in Cancun and this is why the EU will work constructively with other WTO partners towards this goal."

The Commission wants to see progress made on the following issues:

• On agriculture, Cancun is not the end point of the farm trade talks, it is the mid-point. The EU will be striving to get agreement on a framework on how to cut trade distorting farm subsidies, export subsidisation and tariffs and how to give developing countries a more beneficial deal.
• On non-agricultural market access (industrial products), Cancun should establish the framework for the reduction of tariffs and non tariff barriers ("modalities") and set the timetable for the remainder of the negotiations.
• On Services (GATS), Ministers should urge those that may not already have done so to submit initial offers, encourage improvements to existing offers, and establish a clear roadmap for completing the negotiations.
• On the Singapore issues - investment, competition, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement - WTO members need to take decisions on the negotiating modalities for each of the four issues, so that negotiations can start immediately after Cancun.

"It must remain clear that the DDA's final result remains an indivisible package in the form of a Single Undertaking for all WTO members: nothing is agreed until everything is agreed," the Commission proclaimed.

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